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So I had mentioned a while back somewhere that I was building my own lightsaber hilt and some expressed some interest in my progress, which I'll document here. I plan to go to the hardware store and buy random parts to put together for my kids with sink tubes and such. But this one I'm making for myself will be made from parts from The Custom Saber Shop which has a collection of custom-crafted interchangeable threaded parts that you can build your own unique looking sabers with. I selected 6 parts that will be the base for mine.

Here's what I currently have:

After this picture was taken I bought two more parts (a choke and a short cone-shaped pommel) which I've put together like so:

It's quite bigger than I expected at about 13" I think (cue obligatory 'that's what she said' jokes). Which I wasn't intending, but it's really grown on me. The only part that I think I'll change is to swap the positions of the grooved and smooth sections. The power switch and recharge port will be in the smooth section so I'd rather have that part higher up the hilt.

I also bought these electronics a while back to set me up for the future. Pictured here is a "premium speaker" from TCSS and a Nano Biscotte v3 sound board which controls the LED/flashes and the speaker. It also holds a micro SD card which can hold up to two saberfonts that you can alternate between. It's got settings for 8 swings, 8 clashes, saber ignition, saber deactivation, idle hum, and a bootup sound that plays to identify the selected saberfont. This is the cheapest sound board out there (about $65 USD I think) and can be bought from TCSS. There are better boards on the store and elsewhere as well that support more types of sounds (blaster deflect, saberlock, force powers, even background music if you want, etc) and can trigger more specific motions than just generic movement for certain sounds. They also have more available sound banks for more saberfonts at once per sd card. The prices for these boards can range up to $200 each.

I've just made a much larger order this morning which should get me up to about 90% of what I need to finish. Wires, LED, LED lens, LED heat sink module, AV switch, recharge port, kill key, thumb/set/socket screws, covertec knob (for mounting on your belt), a 38" thick-walled poly-carbonate blade, and a slew of other things. The colour LED I chose was green. I could easily set it up so that the LED is wired with a connector that can attach to another connector that runs to the NBv3 board, that way I could swap out LED modules later with different colours if I want. But for now seeing as it's my first build I'll just hardwire it up. I can always change it later anyway. I also sent in one of my hilt parts (a smooth 3" double female threaded connector part) to be drilled with a recessed switch hole and charge port hole (a service which TCSS also provides) as I can't really do that myself...at least not yet.

So the next step is to wait until those parts come in and my switch/recharge hole part comes back. After that I can get started on wiring the sucker up before I install it. I can at least test it at that point. I still need a few other things to finish up, though. I have to drill a blade retention screw hole in the blade holder part and a screw hole for the covertec knob on the bottom. I also need to buy a battery (18650 li-ion).

Many thanks to those that bought some of those old games off me, it's helped my fundraising for this project!

Here's a little Photoshop edit I did to get an idea of what it might look like, enjoy:

Yes, I've been thinking about that. I could have sent that to get done as well, but I think I'd only like inside the grooves coated and not the entire thing (which TCSS only does now). As far as hilt aesthetics go, I'm just getting started. I was thinking about adding a sink tube over top and cutting a design out of it. We'll see what happens.

I've only had a brief look through TCSS site, and the amount of stuff on there is staggering. Props to all the people who take the time to construct their own personalised Lightsaber. Looking forward to seeing further progress on this!

It is cool. Though, at the moment TCSS is quite out of stock of many of their hilt part items due to TFA. A lot of sabersmiths out there are behind actually. Still, some people can get as good results or even better by shopping hardware stores. I've seen very close movie replicas made for under $30. Still others craft their own with a lathe right from a raw cylinder of aluminum. Talented crazy people out there.

My hilt pieces haven't arrived yet (probably won't for a while), but in the meantime I picked up a cheap grabbag saber from UltraSabers for my daughter. A grabbag saber is a random hilt they have lying around that isn't being used, was returned, or possibly in some way blemished. It comes with a random LED colour, no sound, and a random style blade (if you want). Or you can pay extra to get a specific colour or type of blade (the length is still random). I left everything to chance but got a blade plug for when the blade isn't being used. Turned out to be a sweet black hilt with a red LED with no obvious problems that I can see. Perfect rivalry for my son's official Hasbro toy saber. She loved it. I let her open the package not knowing what it was and then when she saw what it was I told her it was for her. She goes, "What?!"

Just got an email today saying the TCSS order that I placed a month ago is ready for shipping! I also sent in my part for switch and recharge port hole drilling so that's being sent back with it, as I mentioned in the OP.

Order details below. You can check the TCSS website for what some of these actually are, but basically it's almost everything I need to start building and getting my lightsaber functioning right away, save for the li-ion battery I still need to get and a special variable resistor I forgot to order. Actually, the resistors I DID order were wrong too. So I bought some cheap ones on eBay (shipping was way cheaper so it wasn't a bad deal. Now I have extra for future projects!).

Ok. Finally got to do some unboxing. Here's some photos. There's a lot here so I'm not going to take individual photos of every single item, but suffice it to say it's all here exactly as I ordered and the changes I requested after purchasing were all made exactly as I wanted with fantastic cooperation from Tim (the guy who runs The Custom Saber Shop). He responded to almost all of my emails both before and after I made my order and was very helpful (if succinct and brief, but he's probably dealing with a lot of emails so I let it pass). The changes I requested was to exchange the 24 gauge wire I ordered for 26 gauge instead (which was the same price) and 4 of the 6 1ohm resistors I ordered for a dynaowhm variable resistor which was a little more expensive. I didn't get a reply to that email requesting the latter exchange, but he did make it, as I was exceedingly happy to discover when I opened the package.

Still left to acquire:
-Li-Ion rechargeable battery (either 3.7v or 7.4v. The 3.7 would be perfect but he's out of stock of those)
-Screw tapping set (for the blade retention and covertec wheel screws)
-Reflective film to diffuse and spread the light more evenly and brightly inside the blade

I'm not sure. It's my first time so I'm going to be careful and take my time. The parts were expensive (well, the shipping was anyway) especially with the Canadian exchange being tanked. The whole process could be finished within 45-60 mins if you know what you're doing. However, I've got a lot more work to do than just putting a premade hilt all together. I've still got to tap some screw holes which I've never done before. It'll be a while yet. I also want to do SOMETHING with the hilt so it's not just a boring shiny piece of silver aluminum. Some colours or black or brass or something here and there. Or I might just leave it as is for my first hilt. Getting everything wired and working will be a success in itself. Then for my next one I can do a little more work on the hilt. Maybe make it a stunt saber (LED only, no sound) so I can lighten the load and spend more time on the hilt aesthetics. Then once I learn enough there I can either do another with a full setup (maybe with a Tri-Cree LED with multiple colours) or go back to this one and pretty up the hilt a bit.

Sigh. All up in the air. I just need to get this one done first and see if I even enjoy doing it. If not, maybe I'll just stick to buying premade hilts and creating saber soundfonts (I'm working on a Portal one already that's almost done and have ideas for a Star Trek TNG and electric guitar-based ones).

It's been a while. I tried to order the lithium-ion battery I needed a while back but it wouldn't ship due to customs issues. So it's taken this long for TCSS to restock Canadian-friendly batteries. I just ordered one today and I'm all excited again! Just need to drill some screw holes for blade retention, LED retention, and the covertec wheel (for belt clip) and that will make it complete.

15 minutes west of a small town an hour west of Winnipeg. I need a 3400mah 3.7w 18650 PCB protected li-ion rechargeable battery. I've already bought it now and it's marked shipped. No takesie backsies.

So that Canada Post strike has been averted! Part came in yesterday! Picked it up from the post office today. Now I've got almost everything I need to get it at least tested and going. Just need to get some supplies like solder and whatnot and I can get started! I do still need to find someone with a drillpress to drill the screw holes (3 of them), but all in good time. At least I can have it "working."